OUTLINING A DEAL EASE TRADE FEUD, U.S. AND EUROPE

VOL. CLXVII . . . No. 58,035

? 2018 The New York Times Company

NEW YORK, THURSDAY, JULY 26, 2018

Late Edition

Today, clouds and sunshine, showers or thunderstorms, humid, high 84. Tonight, partly cloudy, low 73. Tomorrow, afternoon thunderstorms, high 87. Weather map, Page A20.

$3.00

NEWS ANALYSIS

U.S. AND EUROPE

Cash Flowing Into Treasury

Starts to Ebb

EASE TRADE FEUD, OUTLINING A DEAL

NOAH BERGER/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Acrid smoke from a 38,000-acre wildfire cast a pall on Yosemite Valley, Calif., the heart of Yosemite National Park, on Wednesday.

Raging Fire Turns Yosemite Into a Ghost Town Lake on Mars:

This article is by John Branch, Jennifer Medina and Henry Fountain.

YOSEMITE VALLEY, Calif. -- Gone were the massive granite monoliths of Half Dome and El Capitan, lost in the shroud of a ghostly and acrid layer of smoke. Gone, too, were the cascading waterfalls that plunge to the floor of Yosemite Valley, their famed beauty uselessly out of sight.

Most eerily, gone were the people. The iconic valley, usually smothered in tourists this time of year, was instead blanketed in plumes from a raging nearby 38,000-acre wildfire that forced evacuations and turned one of the country's most popular national parks into a virtual ghost town on Wednesday afternoon. The clos-

Firefighters Are Battling

Blazes From Alaska

to Oklahoma

ing is the largest in nearly three decades at the park.

Visitors were given until noon to leave. An hour later, the usually teeming cafeteria was dark, its chairs on the tables. Parking lots were empty. Campgrounds were cleared. The front door of the famous Majestic Yosemite Hotel, best known as the Ahwahnee, was padlocked with a chain.

The Ferguson Fire, which is encroaching on Yosemite Valley, is just one of some 75 large fires stretching from Oklahoma to

Alaska, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, already costing millions of dollars. Thousands of firefighters are battling blazes in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, and Oregon in what is on track to be one of the hottest summers on record for much of the region.

Nationwide, nearly four million acres have burned so far this year, about 11 percent more than the annual average at this time of year since 2008, according to the fire center.

"This is my life and this is my home. It's heartbreaking," said Heather Sullivan, 45, who had to leave her home in El Portal, at the foot of the Yosemite Valley. "These fires are for real, especially when you live in rural

Continued on Page A19

BEN C. SOLOMON/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Escaping the Water in Laos

Thousands around Paksong, in the south, were displaced by flooding from a failed dam. Page A6.

Finding Stirs

Hope for Life

By KENNETH CHANG and DENNIS OVERBYE

For the first time, scientists have found a large, watery lake beneath an ice cap on Mars. Because water is essential to life, the discovery offers an exciting new place to search for life-forms beyond Earth.

Italian scientists working on the European Space Agency's Mars Express mission announced on Wednesday that a 12-mile wide underground liquid pool -- not just the momentary damp spots seen in the past -- had been detected by radar measurements near the Martian south pole.

"Water is there," Enrico Flamini, the former chief scientist of the Italian Space Agency who oversaw the research, said during a news conference.

"It is liquid, and it's salty, and it's in contact with rocks," he added. "There are all the ingredients for thinking that life can be there, or can be maintained there if life once existed on Mars."

The body of water appears similar to underground lakes found on Earth in Greenland and Antarctica. On Earth, microbial life persists down in the dark, frigid waters of one such lake. The ice on Mars would also shield the Martian lake from the damaging radiation that bombards the planet's surface.

Jonathan Lunine, director of the Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science at Cornell University, who was not involved with the research, said the finding transforms Mars from a dusty planet to yet another "ocean world" in the solar system.

"I think the more we explore Mars, the more intriguing and complex it becomes," Dr. Lunine said.

Continued on Page A19

Promising Alzheimer's Drug Attacks Brain Changes and Symptoms

By PAM BELLUCK

The long, discouraging quest for a medication that works to treat Alzheimer's reached a potentially promising milestone on Wednesday. For the first time in a large clinical trial, a drug was able to both reduce the plaques in the brains of patients and slow the

progression of dementia. More extensive trials will be

needed to know if the new drug is truly effective, but if the results, presented Wednesday at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Chicago, are borne out, the drug may be the first to successfully attack both the brain changes and the symptoms of Alzheimer's.

"This trial shows you can both clear plaque and change cognition," said Dr. Reisa Sperling, director of the Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, who was not involved in the study. "I don't know that we've hit a home run yet. It's important not to over-conclude on the data. But as a proof of concept, I feel like

this is very encouraging."

Aside from a couple of medica-

tions that can slow memory de-

cline for a few months, there is no

effective

treatment

for

Alzheimer's, which affects about

44 million people worldwide, in-

cluding 5.5 million Americans. It

is estimated that those numbers

Continued on Page A18

Corporate Taxes Fall

and Push Up Deficits

By JIM TANKERSLEY

The amount of corporate taxes collected by the federal government has plunged to historically low levels in the first six months of the year, pushing up the federal budget deficit much faster than economists had predicted.

The reason is President Trump's tax cuts. The law introduced a standard corporate rate of 21 percent, down from a high of 35 percent, and allowed companies to immediately deduct many new investments. As companies operate with lower taxes and a greater ability to reduce what they owe, the federal government is receiving far less than it would have before the overhaul.

The Trump administration had said that the tax cuts would pay for themselves by generating increased revenue from faster economic growth, but the White House has acknowledged in recent weeks that the deficit is growing faster than it had expected. The Office of Management and Budget said this month that it had revised its forecasts from earlier this year to account for nearly $1 trillion of additional debt over the next decade -- on average, almost $100 billion more a year in deficits.

In the trough of the Great Recession in 2009, when companies were laying off hundreds of thousands of workers each month, corporate tax collections plunged by almost a third. It was the largest quarterly drop since the Commerce Department began compiling the data in the 1940s. No other period came close -- until this year.

From January to June this year, according to data from the Treasury Department, corporate tax payments fell by a third from the same period a year ago. The drop nearly reached a 75-year low as a share of the economy,

Continued on Page A13

TRUMP SEES `NEW PHASE'

Goals Include Tariff Cuts,

but Fears of Another

Flare-Up Persist

By MARK LANDLER and ANA SWANSON

WASHINGTON -- The United States and the European Union stepped back from the brink of a trade war on Wednesday, after President Trump said the Europeans agreed to work toward lower tariffs and other trade barriers, and to buy billions of dollars of American soybeans and natural gas.

The surprise announcement, made by Mr. Trump and the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, defused, for the moment, a trade battle that began with Mr. Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum exports and threatened to escalate to automobiles.

"We're starting the negotiation right now, but we know very much where it's going," Mr. Trump said, standing next to Mr. Juncker at a hastily scheduled appearance in the White House Rose Garden.

Mr. Juncker said, "I had the intention to make a deal today, and we have made a deal today."

The two sides, he said, had agreed to hold off on further tariffs, and work toward dropping the existing ones on steel and aluminum, while they tried to work out a deal to eliminate tariffs, nontariff barriers and subsidies on industrial goods, excluding autos.

It was hard to say, given Mr. Trump's bluster and unpredictable negotiating style, if the agreement was a genuine truce or merely a lull in a conflict that could flare up again. Twice, Mr. Trump's aides have negotiated potential deals with China, only to have him reject them and impose further tariffs. Cutting these trade

Continued on Page A9

Corporate Tax Receipts Near Record Low

Corporate tax receipts are near a 75-year low as a share of the economy. 8%

6

4

2

0

1960

1980

Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis

2000

1.3%

2018

THE NEW YORK TIMES

First the Clintons, Now Cohen: A Crisis Guru Takes On Trump

By MATT FLEGENHEIMER

Lanny J. Davis's client list, like his quintessentially Washington career as an all-purpose lawyer, lobbyist, crisis consultant and television-talker, is lengthy, international -- and more than occasionally contradictory.

Mr. Davis has represented Harvey Weinstein and Penn State, a Ukrainian oligarch with links to President Trump's indicted former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and an Ivory Coast strongman whom Mr. Davis today insists he was trying to help dislodge as part of a secret arrangement with the State Department.

Now, Mr. Davis -- best known as a high-profile spinner for Bill

and Hillary Clinton, first in the White House and then on any cable news network that would have him -- has set off on perhaps his least likely partnership: He is defending Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump's former personal lawyer, who released a recording this week of a conversation that suggests Mr. Trump knew about hush money payments to a former Playboy model.

It was Mr. Davis who went on CNN on Tuesday evening to tell the world about their gambit. "Don't believe me, I'm a Democrat," Mr. Davis said, addressing "red America" as he stared into

Continued on Page A17

INTERNATIONAL A4-10

Pompeo Defends the President

Questioned by senators, the secretary of state said the Trump administration was being harsh with Russia. PAGE A8

Early Count in Pakistani Vote

The party of Imran Khan, a former cricket star, pulled ahead in the early election results in Pakistan. PAGE A10

NATIONAL A11-20

Emoluments Case Advances

A judge ruled that a case arguing that the president is improperly benefiting from his company's Washington hotel should be allowed to proceed. PAGE A12

Loan Forgiveness in Reverse

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos proposed requiring borrowers seeking aid to prove financial distress. PAGE A14

NEW YORK A21-23

Housing Agency Sees More Ills

The New York City Housing Authority

has admitted that its failures go well

beyond lead testing.

PAGE A21

BUSINESS DAY B1-8

Nosedive for Facebook Stock

Growth is slowing and will keep slow-

ing, a sign that recent scrutiny is affect-

ing Facebook's business.

PAGE B1

China's Take on Dollar Stores

China is getting richer, but the online bazaar Pinduoduo has found that plenty of people still love cheap stuff. PAGE B1

SPORTSTHURSDAY B9-12

Cowboys Stand, Jones Says

Jerry Jones, the team's owner, said his players would not be allowed to stay in the locker room for the national anthem, defying an N.F.L. policy. PAGE B9

ARTS C1-8

Rapper on the Rise

At 19, Juice WRLD is having a breakout moment on the strength of one of the year's most effective hip-hop albums so far, Jon Caramanica writes. PAGE C1

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A26-27

Lee Siegel

PAGE A27

THURSDAY STYLES D1-8

A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Chase

Phone calls, sneaker bots and making

friends with salesclerks. It's just part of

Critical Shopper's long, frantic pursuit

of the Balenciaga Triple S.

PAGE D1

U(D54G1D)y+%!z![!#!:

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download